Q&A With Greg Roth (Zone Lead) – What the Scrolls will foretell

On Tuesday (May 6th 2014) we had an amazing opportunity to discuss PvP with Lead PvP Designer Brian Wheeler. As if that wasn’t enough, Zenimax has graciously allowed us an additional opportunity to throw some questions at Greg Roth (Zone Lead).

With the release of Craglorn looming ever so closely, we decided to ask questions that related to the future of ESO. What can we expect from ESO in the coming months and/or years.

Before we get into the Q&A, I want to take this moment to thank the Zenimax team, they’ve provided unbelievable support to TESO Elite and our community. They have gone above and beyond, providing answers to our questions to ensure we’re providing accurate information. A game is only as good as it’s community and Zenimax has raised the bar when it comes to Developer and Community interactions.

Will there be any type of lockout system for Trials? Without a lockout is there any prevention or time sink implemented to help prevent players from burning through the content in a short amount of time?

You get can get a cool quest reward randomized loot container which contains special set items (and a few other cool bonuses) once per week from each of our two raids. On top of this, if you place in the top 100 times on the Trial of the Week leaderboard, you can get a third loot container for the week.

The weekly rewards in the Trials are fictionalized with the Undaunted. Each week, the Undaunted “find” something special that they want to give to you in recognition for the awesome thing you just did (defeated the Trial.) This timer is set individually for each Trial, so you could potentially get a total of two weekly rewards if you’re able to complete both Trials each week—this is in addition to the potential leaderboard rewards.

ZeniMax has announced they are planning to release content every 4-6weeks. Can we expect this content to be extensions to Craglorn or entirely new Adventure Zones? How long are you expecting Adventure Zones to last until you release the next one?

There is currently one planned extension to Craglorn (really, the completion of the Celestials story arc) as well as future Adventure Zones in completely different areas of Tamriel (and beyond!) However, not all future updates will be Adventure Zones; indeed, there is content planned for many different types of play-style interests, including solo, group, roleplaying, and PVP.

It’s hard to give a barometer of just how long a given piece of content will last on a global scale – for some it’ll be weeks, for others it will be months. Ideally, by the time something is being finished up, we want to have something else lined up and ready to go!

In the Craglorn trailer, there was a scene where we saw a Veteran Rank 12 player. Currently in the live servers VR 10 is the highest, will this be changing when Craglorn is released? If not, when do you suspect the VR cap will change?

The highest Veteran Rank will increase with the Craglorn update and likely increase further as we get into later and more difficult content updates. Craglorn’s current highest difficulty tier is at VR12 and the players will be able to achieve that rank as well.

Will level 50 always be the level cap and we’ll see the VR rank increased or will be see additions to both in future expansions?

Anything is subject to change, of course, but as planned we will be increasing the Veteran Ranks rather than sheer level cap.

How many trials are you aiming for in each adventure zone when they are released?

At Craglorn’s release, there will be two Trials. When Craglorn sees its first update, another will be added. There will also be Trials that show up for other pieces of content that are not strictly Adventure Zones. So essentially, it’s hard to give a concrete answer that will apply to the release of all future Trials, but you shouldn’t depend on Adventure Zones as the only source of Trials.

Are there any plans to add any more weapons skills to the current skill list?

“The Konk” informs me that it’s certainly something we’ve talked about, but we don’t have anything to announce right now. I will continue to lobby for slaughterfish-nunchucks on my own time though.

No? Okay.

In future patches / expansions, will we only see Adventure Zones or will we see other zones that have their own unique story lines?

There will absolutely be other zones that are not Adventure Zones!

Are there any plans to have in-game holiday events for real life holidays? For example, can we expect some sort of Christmas event in December?

Tamrielic holidays don’t always line up with real-world ones, and real-world holidays would feel notably out of place in The Elder Scrolls universe. While I cannot preclude the possibility that holiday events more suitable to Tamriel may come, there are presently no plans to introduce them.

Are there any plans for additional PvP areas such as a Battleground or Arena style?

At this point in time, there are no such plans. We want the focus to remain on the War of Three Banners in Cyrodiil for now.

Housing is a very large aspect to Role Playing Games, and is sometimes one of the most commonly requested feature for MMOs, is there any development plans for housing in ESO?

It’s definitely on our radar. It’s really easy to do housing badly, though; when it makes it in, it will be done right.

Are there any plans to allow us to customize our horse? For example, having a clothier craft new bridals or garments for them?

There are no plans for this beyond what already happens as you level your horse. However, we wouldn’t write it off as we want mounts to be something people are really proud of.

Will we ever be able to customize our character after they are created? For example hair style / colour / Tattoos, or scars?

It’s certainly something we want to do!

Some professions such as Provisioning are far easier to level and use than others like Enchanting. Is the current leveling difficulty for these professions where you want them? How will the theft system play into the complexity of finding items for professions? Will it be harder to steal items from people’s houses?

Our Justice system is still in the very early prototype phases, but you can expect that it will add some needed challenge to the Provisioner profession. We are acutely aware of the economic balance implications that theft brings to the table and it is part of the reason we are not rushing out the system. While “harder to steal” is a matter of player skill, we can definitely say that there will be risk involved in pilfering items from homes and shops in the future.

Are you happy with the decision you made shortly before launch to limit the API access to the game? What can we expect moving forward in regards to Add-Ons from what you’ve learned?

When people have worked to make fun things for the game, in this case add-ons, and the limits you put in hurts the work they did, it is hard to say you are happy. However, we are satisfied that the goal of helping to get to a more even playing field was met, while keeping in as much flexibility as we could. The add-on developers continue to make great add-ons for the game, and that is something we are happy about.

Will we see players from the other factions in the Adventure Zones? If we do, will be able to group with them? Is open world PvP an option for Adventure Zones, either now or in the future?

Presently, Craglorn is split via alliance much in the way that the Coldharbour zone is in the game now. You will not see, nor interact with, players of the other alliances while in Craglorn.

There are currently no plans to create Adventure Zones that are PvP enabled.

Are there any races in the Elder Scrolls lore, which the ESO staff would like to see as a playable race in the future?

Currently no plans for anything new, but I hold out hope for my Alfiq Khajiit Sorcerer and Sload Nightblade. One day.